The Empirical Evidence for Citizen Information and a Local Market for Public Goods

Abstract

In their 1993 article in this Review, Paul Teske, Mark Schneider, Michael Mintrom, and Samuel Best sought to establish the microfoundations for a model of a competitive market for public services between local governments in polycentric regions. An important part of their model focused on subgroups of informed citizens, especially recent movers. Theoretical analysis was supplemented by an empirical study of the factors shaping accuracy of Long Island homeowners' information about relative expenditures and tax rates of their school districts. David Lowery, W. E. Lyons and Ruth Hoogland DeHoog criticize the relevance of this empirical evidence, suggesting the atypical nature of education as a service (especially in this site) and challenging the sufficiency of the demonstrated levels of information for generating a competitive market. Teske and his colleagues reply by pointing out the general importance of education throughout American local policymaking and by defending the relevance of their measures and conclusions for their market model.

Fairy Tale Critiques and Political Science: A Reply to Kenneth Newton

“…The effect of the pocketbook variable is, therefore, much larger. The reader will see that the same result emerges from columns (2) to (5).…”

“…The present article uses the Markus design to analyse twenty-eight quarterly surveys from Denmark between 1986 and 1992. 5 Our result, once more, is: Danes are mainly pocketbook voters: we find that Ϸ 0.2.…”

“…We shall mention the one instance where it adds to the one we tell at present. 4 5 A total of 17,100 respondents were covered by the IFKA-surveys. However, the full data set was only obtained for about 11,000 respondents.…”

“…5 Only once in fourteen surveys (in May 1983, more of which subsequently) did more people say they would be very sorry to hear that the EC had been scrapped than said they would be relieved. More notable than the negative views is the relative stability of opinion.…”

“…More notable than the negative views is the relative stability of opinion. In contrast to the 1960s and 1970s, the public's 3 5 Gallup polling results provided through the courtesy of Robert Wybrow of Social Surveys (Gallup Poll) Ltd. Full citation for all data in the paper available from the author on request. After January 1985 Gallup did not asked the question again for two and a half years and then only twice more in 1987.…”